


Home Away From Homeworld

by kawaiihobbits



Series: Banished Zircon [2]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: AU, Found Family, Gen, Post-Canon, Zircon has anxiety, it's between season 5 and the movie, technically
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:48:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24801844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kawaiihobbits/pseuds/kawaiihobbits
Summary: Steven pulled his offered hand back to rub his arm. His mouth pulled into a thin line before he said, “I know we didn’t get a lot of time to talk back at the trial, but I… always kinda thought of you as a friend. Now that you’re here, though, I want to take the time to actually be your friend, for real.”--Zircon adjusts to life on Earth. The Crystal Gems adjust to Zircon.Sequel to You Were Right
Relationships: Blue Zircon & Steven Universe
Series: Banished Zircon [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1267346
Comments: 9
Kudos: 25





	Home Away From Homeworld

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little note, I haven't seen SU Future yet, so some things may not be entirely canon compliant there. But it's already an AU, so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> Also, this picks up pretty much where "You Were Right" leaves off, so you might wanna read that first!

Zircon was honestly still not over being on Earth. Not once in her 4,000 years did she think that she would wind up on _Earth_ , of all places. Nothing about her situation felt entirely real yet. She could hardly comprehend the fact that she was sitting in Steven’s house, and that Steven had _Pink Diamond’s gem_ … Stars, today was only getting crazier and crazier.

Speaking of Steven, he had stood up from the seating area a little while ago and walked back over to the front of the house. "We should probably do something about your escape pod," He said as he looked out the window. “Leaving something that big out on the beach probably isn’t a good idea.”

“What _can_ we do with it?” Zircon asked, standing as well and joining him at the window. Back outside, the other Crystal Gems were still standing around the escape pod, seeming to chat among themselves. She could even see some of them laugh at some joke she couldn’t hear.

“We can probably just put it in the house for, now and worry about a permanent home for it later,” Steven said as he walked over to the door. His hand rested on the handle, ready to open the door at any moment, but there was a pause to his actions. He looked back at her and asked, “Do you wanna come with?”

“Uh, w-well,” Zircon stuttered a little, raising a hand to adjust her monocle, eyes darting around to avoid contact, “I’m not sure if, if my presence would be, well, _beneficial,_ in this particular circumstance.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” He said calmly. “You don’t have to be useful or ‘beneficial’, as you put it. You can just… _be._ ”

His words were so plainly delivered, and yet they took up so much of Zircon’s thoughts. She stared at him with wide eyes as her mind desperately tried to wrap itself around the concept. No need to be beneficial… “I can… just, be? I can just be _what_ , e-exactly?” She asked, voice raising in pitch ever so slightly.

With a small laugh, he said, “You can be whatever you want to be, and do whatever you want to do. For instance,” He held his hand out and smiled again, “do you wanna come with me?”

She stared at the offered hand for a second or two, then back out the window. The other gems… they really were just _existing_ in the same space, weren’t they? Gems that, back on Homeworld, held wildly different statuses communing with one another like they were of the same cut. Not to mention a _fusion,_ whose very being would be a damnable offense. 

Her mind echoed back to one of the last things Blue Diamond’s Pearl ever said to her, about Earth: _"...where those who do not belong on Homeworld can belong."_ None of these Gems fit in with the rigid caste system they had been made into, but they belonged _here._ They belonged _together_. 

She wanted that camaraderie, the same sort of easy talk that came with her fellow court members. The other Zircons would chat between trials, swapping stories and even snide remarks about clients and witnesses that no one would dare bring out into the public. It was so easy to fit in back then. She knew her place in the world, and that was in the Diamond’s Court, and oh, how she _missed_ it.

But to try and recreate what she once had with such an already tight-knit group… 

“Uh, Zircon?” Steven’s words snapped her out of her reverie. She looked back to him; his hand had lowered slightly and his smile had fallen from his eyes. “You okay?”

“...fine,” Zircon murmured shakily, then cleared her throat and repeated, “I’m fine.”

His smile lifted a bit, careful and encouraging. “You don’t have to come with me, if you don’t want to. You can stay here.”

“I…” Her eyes flicked to the window again, then back to Steven. It was a wonder how she didn’t notice before just how different he looked, compared to how he was in the courtroom. He was taller, if only by a little bit, with a lively color to his face that was completely missing before. He was smiling a lot more, too, now that the threat of the Diamond’s Court wasn’t looming over his head. It really suited him.

She started again, “I… want to go with you, but…” Again, she looked out the window. “…what if _they_ don’t want me there?”

“What if they don’t…” Steven started to repeat, trailing off with a confused note to his voice. “What do you mean by that?”

“It’s pretty obvious they don’t exactly trust me,” Zircon said plainly, crossing her arms and forcing her gaze away from the beach. “If you weren’t there, I, I don’t know how things would have gone…” She could have continued, and maybe she _should_ have, but she didn’t. Her words hung heavy in the air between them. 

“ _Well_ … I can think of _one_ person who wants you there.” Steven pulled his offered hand back to rub his arm. His mouth pulled into a thin line before he said, “I know we didn’t get a lot of time to talk back at the trial, but I… always kinda thought of you as a friend. Now that you’re here, though, I want to take the time to actually _be_ your friend, for real.” He chuckled under his breath, and his cheeks tinged ever so slightly pink. “It sounds really cheesy when I say it out loud…” 

Zircon blinked in surprise, and after another moment of staring, she smiled back. “You can be whatever you want to be,” She echoed his words back to him. His eyes lit up as she continued, “And I also, I also want to be your friend.” She copied him again, holding her hand out to him like he had done before. Pushing past the nervous, fluttering knot in her stomach, she added, “And… I’ll give the others a chance, as well.”

Steven’s eyes positively _sparkled_ as his smile widened once more. He took her hand once again, giving it a firm but reassuring squeeze. His other hand, never once moving from its spot at the door, pulled it open.

The slight creak of the door caught the attention of everyone on the beach. They all turned to look at the pair emerging from the house, all seeming a little surprised when they caught sight of Zircon. That did nothing to quell her nerves, of course, and she held Steven’s hand just a fraction tighter.

The Off-Color Amethyst was the first to call out to them, raising her hand and voice to say, “Hey, Steven!” 

“Hey, Amethyst,” Steven waved back as he descended the stairs with Zircon in tow. They quickly joined the others out on the sand. 

The Pearl spoke next, hands neatly clasped together, “Has everything been,” her eyes flicked to Zircon, “sorted out?”

“Kinda?” Steven shrugged, looking back up at Zircon. “I mean, I explained everything to her, but beyond that there’s still… a _lot_ that needs to be done. ”

“What needs to be done, exactly?” Pearl asked with a tilt of her head. Her eyes were still on Zircon, staring quizzically.

"Well, we kinda need to figure out where she'll be staying," He said.

“Sssssooooo,” Lapis Lazuli dragged out the word, scrutinizing the new Gem with half-lidded eyes. “Does that mean you'll need a ride home eventually, or do you need a more permanent place to stay?”

“The, the second one,” Zircon admitted. A beat passed, and she added, “I _can’t_ go back to Homeworld, actually.”

Lapis Lazuli raised an eyebrow. Next to her, Peridot chimed in, “Well, why not?”

“...High treason?” Zircon said with a false smile and raised shoulders. Everyone’s reaction was befitting of shock (except maybe the fusion, it was hard to tell), so she elaborated, “Accusing the Diamonds of Shattering one of their own and covering it up is… well, it’s one of the most serious crimes one could commit with words alone. I should know, I used to serve their Court.”

“Yooo,” Amethyst breathed in amazement and nodded slowly, “that’s pretty hardcore.”

“So, waittaminute,” Peridot frowned, “this was during Steven’s trial, right? They banished you for _doing your job?”_

“Oh, no! It’s not like that,” Zircon held her hands up defensively, letting go of Steven’s. “My only job was to prove his innocence-- o-or, well, _Rose’s_ innocence, b-but the fact of the matter is I took it too far when I started to point fingers. At the _Diamonds_ , no less,” She shuddered at the memory, wrapping her arms around herself.

“It was fascinating to watch, that’s for sure,” Steven said quietly. 

“That’s…” Pearl spoke softly, smiling in a way that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “...well, I’m certainly surprised you got so close to the answer.”

“M-me too,” Zircon admitted. “I’m honestly a little surprised no one else got close to the answer before me. It was obvious in hindsight, but then again, _everything_ is.”

“Well, you know how Homeworld was,” Peridot said with her hands on her hips. “The Diamond’s word was law, and that was that. Plus, with all the witnesses backing them up, they probably didn’t think to look too much deeper.”

“They didn’t,” Pearl said with quiet certainty, “and Rose was banking on that.” She shook her head after a brief pause, smiling brightly as she changed the subject with, “But, well, you’ve probably heard enough about _that_ whole event for one day! How are you liking Earth so far?”

How _was_ she liking Earth so far? Now that was the question of a lifetime. For the small amount of time Zircon had been here, had she really seen enough to form a strong enough opinion on it? “It’s… something else,” She finally said with a shrug.

She looked out to the vast expanse of water before them, watching the light dance off of the waves. The slow, rhythmic sounds of the ocean hitting the sand brought a smile to her face. She’d listen to it forever, if she could.

“I like the way the ocean sounds,” She said. “It’s, it’s very calming.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Steven said with a smile in his voice. He turned his head and, upon seeing the pod again, intoned, “Oh, yeah, _that._ Can’t believe I forgot.”

“What, the pod?” Amethyst asked, walking over and rapping her knuckles along its surface. “Yeah, we were trying to figure out where to put it, and then Peridot told a joke and we _kinda_ got off track.”

“I’m a master of comedy,” Peridot proclaimed proudly.

“Did you guys have any ideas?” Steven asked.

“Well, that depends.” Amethyst looked at Zircon and asked, “Do you still want it?”

“Uh, n-no?”

“Can I have it?”

“...Why?”

“I ‘unno, it’s cool-lookin’.”

“...You know what? Sure.”

“YES!” Amethyst pumped her fist into the air. Immediately she tried to pick up the pod on her own, feet slipping in the sand as it shifted only slightly. “Hey, Garnet, can you, uh--”

“I got it,” The fusion, Garnet, finally spoke and moved from her stoic sentinel. She walked over and, with little trouble, hoisted the pod up onto her shoulder. When she turned to go back to the house, she paused, staring for a moment at Zircon.

Well, it was hard to say _what_ she was staring at, exactly. The reflective visor over her eyes was impossible to see through. Her head was pointed in Zircon’s direction, though, and the feeling of someone staring intently was all too familiar. Zircon could only stare back, nervous and worried that she’d done something wrong.

Garnet didn’t say anything else. She simply smiled, gave a thumbs up, and walked back over to Steven’s house. Amethyst trailed behind, snapping her fingers in Zircon’s direction and sticking her tongue out. 

Carefully, Zircon leaned over to Steven and whispered, “Was that a good thing she just did?”

“Yeah, that usually means she likes you,” Steven nodded.

“And the uh… Garnet?”

“I think she likes you, too.”

An invisible weight had lifted, and Zircon suddenly found it so much easier to breathe. They _liked_ her. They actually liked her! She couldn’t keep a smile off of her face, and Steven smiled along with her. 

Feeling surprisingly content, Zircon looked back out to the ocean. A sudden curiosity came over her, compelling her to walk forward to the very edge of the water. The waves lapped against her feet, shockingly cold but refreshing all the same. She sat down on the sand, and her hands lingered in the grainy texture. 

She could have sat there all day. She probably would have, were it not for the sound of footsteps against the sand and Steven saying, “Oh, hey Dad!”


End file.
